Grandpa
often said that he didn't like all the newfangled things in his house.

He
could do without the fax-machine, computers, compact disks, video recorders and
most of all, he could do without the microwave oven.

"Who
knows what these microwave things could do to someone or something?," he often
said.

But
these were the modern days. Microwave ovens had their place. A fast cup of tea,
instant meals soup in a hurry. What possibly could be wrong with having a
microwave oven?

Grandpa's
microwave oven had sat in his kitchen for a long time. Magazines and newspapers
were piled on top of it. The grandchildren stored their toys inside. It had
never been plugged in.

Grandpa's
son worked as an advertiser. He loved the world of technology. Every new
invention that came on the market he'd buy two of each, one for himself and one
for his father.

His
father or grandpa to the children, would leave the new things in their boxes.
Grandpa had closets full of 'the latest things'.

Grandpa
liked his wood burning stove. It had been good enough for his parents and it was
good enough for him.

He'd
make his pot of tea on it and it would keep the house warm at the same time. In
summer he would create his meals outside over the
barbecue.

Grandpa
would not use his modern car. He preferred to ride his bike.

Grandpa
was 90 years old. He had been riding bikes since he was ten. Why stop now? In
the two years since his son had brought him the car it had never been out of the
garage

The
fax machine sat in its box. When grandpa first installed it the grandchildren,
Sacha and Leigh, thought it would be fun to play with. They wanted to play spy
so they sent coded messages to an army installation in a
foreign

country.
The Army sent several
of their top people to grandpa'shouse, including a general - they were not

impressed.

After
that grandpa packed the fax machine back

into
its box and put it on a high shelf in a closet.

The
video recorder, compact disk, cameras, computers and gadgets that grandpa
couldn't even imagine what they did all ended up in their boxes in the closets
or in the garage.

Some
modern things were o.k. There was the washing machine that grandpa finally began
to use. He was so use to washing his clothes in the sink that his son had to
actually talk him into using it. It was easier to use than the sink but grandpa
reckoned it was because he was getting old and lazy.

NeXt

It
was a weekend and the grandchildren were staying at grandpa's house for the
weekend while their father was away on a business
trip.

The
children were playing military. Sacha was using the kitchen for his base. Leigh
was in the shed. They were using walkie-talkies to talk to one other. Grandpa
was taking a nap outside.

Sacha
pushed the buttons on the microwave oven. He was pretending that it was a
missile launcher. He set the timer on five minutes. Nothing happened so he
plugged the oven into the wall-socket and turned on the switch. The microwave
oven's light went on. After two minutes there was a very loud sound coming from
inside of the oven.

Sacha
yelled over his walkie-talkie to Leigh to come into the kitchen quickly. The two
children looked at the oven. It was making more and more noise. Suddenly the
five minute buzzer went buzzzzzzzzzz. The door popped
open.

To
the amazement of the children out walked a small dinosaur. It was a stegosaurus.
It locked more like a model of a stegosaurus than the real thing. It walked
across the counter top and jumped onto a window ledge. It walked up to a
Philodendron and ate all its leaves.

"Oh
no, that's grandpa's favorite plant," said Leigh.

After
chomping away the leaves on the Philodendron the stegosaurus knocked the plant
into the sink and stomped, in its little toy-like way, over to the Dwarf
Umbrella Tree.

"Oh
no, that is grandpa's second favorite plant," yelled
Sacha.

As
the stegosaurus ate, it grew. It grew too big for the kitchen window sill and
fell off onto the kitchen sink.

Just
then grandpa walked in.

"Who
turned on the microwave oven?"

Grandpa
stared at the two boys then at the plant eating dinosaur. He seemed to already
know what would happen if the microwave was turned on. The children looked at
each other then at grandpa. They had often wondered why he had put every modern
thing away that he had except for that.

The
dinosaur climbed out of the sink and jumped to the floor. There was a loud crash
as it landed. It walked out of the kitchen and headed for the front door. It
pushed open the door and stomped outside and into the garden. Grandpa and the
children ran after it.

"NO!
NO! NO!"

They
all shouted as the rapidly growing prehistoric animal ate and ate and ate, and
grew and grew and grew as it plodded through the garden. It ate the bushes. It
ate the shrubs. It ate the flowers. It ate the leaves an the tree. It ate the
corn the lettuce the spinach which the children were delighted to see because
they didn't like it.

It
ate the lawn.

Grandpa
opened the garage door. There was room for two cars though he only had one. The
stegosaurus strutted into the garage and laid down. It was bigger than the car.

Grandpa
tried closing the door but the dinosaur's tail would not fit into the garage.
The door could only go down to where the tail was, leaving it to stick about two
meters out onto the driveway.

"We
must get it back into the oven," grandpa said.

The
three went back into the house and put the microwave oven onto a wagon and
pulled it out to the garage.

They
plugged it in.

"It
won't fit," Sacha said.

Grandpa
laughed, "of course not, we'll have to put him in a little bit at a
time."

The
three started with the tail.

"At
least we'll be able to close the door - if we can shrink its tail", grandpa
said.

They
could only get a tip of the tail in, it was so thick. The children turned the
oven on.

"It
has to be an for five minutes," grandpa said.

Slowly
the children and grandpa managed to shrink the tail enough to close the door by
dinner time. They still had the rest of the weekend and the dinosaur was fast
asleep from growing so fast, so they had a lot of time to do a lot of
shrinking.

After
dinner, cooked on the barbecue, the three humans went to work on the one
animal.

"It
is probably having a dream about the prehistoric days," said
Sacha.

I
hope it doesn't wake up and decide that it would rather be a meat eating
dinosaur," said Leigh.

They
tried to lift its massive paws but the feet were just too heavy. They had to put
in one toe at a time. Next they worked on the huge spikes on its back. It took a
long time but finally the points on the stegosaurus's back were all
small.

"Look,
he's bald," laughed grandpa.

But
the children didn't think it was funny. They were tired and it was all getting
to be an awful lot of work.

Getting
the dino's head in was the hardest part of all. The three had to put a heavy
rope around it's head and loop the rope around a large wooden beam at the top of
the garage and pull and pull. The beam almost broke. When the stegosaurus's head
was finally off of the garage floor they quickly pushed the microwave in front
of it.

Because
the head would not fit in they had to leave the door open. They set the oven for
five minutes and ran out of the garage. The dinosaur was waking up. The feet
were already very small, as small as a toy and the tail was the size of a
pencil. The points an its back were hardly noticeable.

There
was a very large noise in the garage. After the timer went buzzzzzz the three
walked in. There was no huge stegosaurus there. In front of the microwave oven
there was a very small dinosaur going on a walk-about. It was headed for the
plants by the window.

The
three ran over to the monster and quickly put it back into the oven. They
unplugged it and lugged it back into the kitchen. They set it back onto its
counter and put magazines and newspapers on top of it.

The
two children and grandpa were exhausted and they all fell to sleep on the sofa
in the living room.

When
the children's father came to pick them up he asked if they had had a good time.
Before they could answer he said that he had a surprise for grandpa.

It
was a new type of microwave oven.

Grandpa
and the children looked at each other and cried out,

"OH
NO!"

Sacha
and Leigh went home with their father and they never played games with microwave
ovens again.

Grandpa
put the new microwave oven into the garage and never took it out of its
box.